Disappointment
by jade-davis
Summary: Robin receives an invitation from the navigator that was not honored. Nami relieves some memories causing her to be unable to keep her promise...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story doesn't really have an ending, or a plot, at the moment. It's written as a one-shot, but I might add Nami's POV if i get an idea of how to go about it. Anyway it's mostly just Robin musing to herself.**

**Disclaimer: Nothing in One Piece is mine, but the words below are. If One Piece WERE mine it'd be so much less of an adventure story. Haha~**

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><p>Robin sat alone in her quarters. From where she was she could see her precious collection of books quite clearly. Normally she would've been able to pick out something quite easily, but today, she just wasn't in the mood.<p>

She wanted to badly to just stay in the room and not return to deck, but lingering where she was for too long would arouse a certain green haired swordsman's suspicions and she did not need that either.

Running her fingers across the numerous book spines, she finally sighed and took a thick, hard bound title at random, not intending to read it at all. The brunette settled herself in her usual seat and proceeded to pretend to flip through the pages.

Perhaps it was best that the red head wasn't around in the seat beside her. Thinking about the navigator made her soul feel so empty at the moment.

_Robin walked up to a rather peculiar scene on deck._

_Nami was holding a book._

_Reading a book._

_Taking a peek at the title explained all the curiousness of the situation. Celestial Navigation for the New World Seafarer. Robin smiled and took her usual seat with a book of her own._

_The younger woman put looked over the pages at the archeologist, 'Ne, Robin, have you read books like these?'_

'_I normally read history books, navigator san. I'm glad you found a book that captured your interest.'_

'_Oh this? I found it in the junk pile downstairs. God knows how it ended up on here.' Nami replied, the various graphs and diagrams commanding her attention once more._

'_Navigator san, I believe with these books, it would be best to experience it yourself. Tonight seems to be a cloudless one.'_

_Nami perked up, 'You're fond of late nights, right Robin? Join me?'_

Robin heaved a heavy sigh as the next thoughts entered her mind, like a well rehearsed play.

_The navigator later postponed the stargazing session. Saying something about having to finish her map while the waves were this perfectly calm and the boat wasn't rocking._

_Then she promised the next day._

_Now Robin wasn't such a petty woman that she would mind a one-time blow off. But Nami did not stop at the first time. The red head put off the plan again and again on successive nights, each citing a different reason._

_In the end, it came to the point where Robin couldn't tolerate any longer. She just proceeded to sleep early for the next few nights, thus liberating the younger woman from the chore of creating a new excuse for the night._

She did not want to remember any of this. To think that she had been so uncharacteristically looking forward to the navigator's invitation on the first night, only to have her over eager heart crushed again and again by one excuse after another.

To make matters worse, the delicate balance of friendship – or whatever ties that they have formed between one another – that Robin had so carefully constructed, seem to have been destroyed. There was an awkwardness in the air that neither would bare to admit, but also neither would bear to suffer in each other's presence.

Robin was disappointed in Nami.

And Nami, well, who knows what she was thinking when she started all this with an invitation she did not mean to honor.

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><p><strong>If you like it, please review! This is my first time posting anything so anything you say would be such an encouragement.<strong>

**If you hate it, please review anyway. I would really like to know what i wrote caused that hatred. ^^ Need to improve myself, no?  
><strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Sorry if the first part was confusing. That was written on the spur on the moment and I felt like putting Nami's POV after reading it again. ^^ Again, mostly Nami's thoughts on why she brushed Robin off and you'll see familiar flashbacks in an attempt to remain true to the story. **

**Disclaimer: Anything that remotely seem to belong to One Piece, belongs to Eiichiro Oda. The rest would be mine.**

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><p>'You're fond of late nights, right Robin? Join me?'<p>

For a moment, she did not realize what she had just said. It was when Robin smiled at her in response that she fully registered her unconscious invitation to the archeologist. Nami hurriedly presented a casual grin in reply and buried her nose in her book, hoping that by feigning that her concentration was in the pages, it would hide the truth that she was relieving her memories.

Memories she never forgot. But memories that she never wanted to remember, either.

'_A map of the world? That's very interesting! So this map is the first step towards that dream?'_

_The young red head nodded, pleased that her adopted mother approves of her seemingly unachievable dream._

_Many nights after that the young girl would sneak out into the night, sometimes to stare at the ocean, sometimes at the stars. Oftentimes the small family would just lay on the grass, with Bell-mere occasionally pointing out the more common constellations._

_That was a time of peace._

More than anything else, she wanted to spend the quiet of the night, and the beauty of the stars, with someone else. And for a long time that someone had been Robin.

Being with the brunette was relaxing. It was as if she had a power that warped the space around her with her calmness, something not unlike the eye of the storm. Peaceful and calm, so much that the navigator sometimes realized herself being stiff and controlled around Robin, fearing, maybe that perhaps if she made any sudden movements, something bad would happen, the silence would break, and Robin would disappear, just like _she _did, so many years ago.

Nami shuddered. Her previous memories came crashing back into her mind, as if impatient to release the painful thoughts she had always suppressed.

_Peace, its presence always fleeting._

_Then one day it was no more. Disaster came, as disasters often come, unexpectedly, suddenly, breaking through silence with its unforgiving chaos._

Nami closed her book, unable to keep up her passive façade for any longer. She sneaked a backward glance at Robin, who did not seem to have noticed – those strong blue eyes of the older woman hungrily drinking all the information on the written pages, while she made her way back to her cabin and nearly slammed the door behind her in her haste.

_The broken bones. The blood. The tears. The gunshot._

_Belle-mere san. Gen-san. Nojiko. Arlong. _

_Her maps. The money. The stares. More blood._

She held her head in her hands as her eyes watered and tears began to flow freely. No, she can't do this. If even the mere thought of star gazing brought back the memories of being with Bell-mere, coupled by the pain of the unrest that followed, as she thought, she couldn't handle it, not just yet.

Still with her back facing the door, she curled up in a fetal position and sobbed silently into her shirt.

_I'm sorry, Robin._

She chickened out. Luckily for her, it was a windless night, and she could use it as an excuse to finish her maps. She had, however, caught a flash of disappointment in the brunette eyes when she presented the lie, a flash so quick that Nami thought she might have imagined it.

_It wasn't a total lie_, she told herself, _it wasn't_. She really had some maps undone, and the night's weather was the best to perfect them. So desperate was she to believe the lie that her mind went into overdrive, and promised a second date the night after.

Robin had smiled in understanding and walked away, presumably to the deck to finish her reading.

Nami wandered into the midst of her beloved mikan trees.

_Mikan. Bell-mere. The million beli. Her village. Arlong forcing her to be his navigator._

_The maps._

_Luffy. Arlong's Park. Fighting. Crashing, into the tower. The left window of the highest floor. _

_First her table. Then the bookshelves. Followed by all the other furniture that was in that room. After that, as if Luffy had no other target of destruction, all her maps, her entire work of 8 years, were thrown out of the tower._

_To her, the papers seemed to have obtained the very thing she had always dreamed of. _

_Freedom. _

_The maps glided, softly, slowly, like feathers, and seemed to last forever._

_Her attention was soon diverted by a loud crash. Followed by the total collapse of Arlong's Park seconds after. When the dust cleared, the sight of Arlong laying unconscious under a pile of debris shocked her for a moment until Luffy called out to her._

'_NAMI! YOU ARE MY NAKAMA!'_

That thought jolted her entirely back to the present. That's right. Bell-mere had given up the chance to live for her so that she could smile and face another day. Luffy had rescued her from Arlong, so that she could pursue her dreams. She was alive, not to dwell in the pain of her past memories, but to forge her path ahead, creating new ones, to live, to cry, to laugh and to smile with her nakama.

Damn if she was going to let the past rule her life like this!

Nami smiled, returning to her quarters to turn her map drawing lie into truth. Her heart beating in anticipation with every passing step, feeding on her newfound liberation.

She'd wanted this for so long.

Tomorrow. She'd redeem herself tomorrow night. She'd promised. Right?

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><p><strong>Yes, there will be another part. I initially intended to include it here but the story got too long for my taste and I feel continuing would probably break the feel I'm trying to build up here. I'll be telling why Nami kept on postponing and hopefully the ending in another last chapter.<strong>

**Well I hope you enjoyed this~!**


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